


The Thing About Falling

by writerforlife



Series: Falling Universe [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), because communication can save the world, in this house we talk about our problems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-15 05:10:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14784158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writerforlife/pseuds/writerforlife
Summary: After Thanos takes away half the world's population -- including the people they love -- Tony and Steve have to team up to defeat him. But before they save the universe, they have to confront their problems and save each other.





	The Thing About Falling

**Author's Note:**

> I was a little nervous about posting this but decided to go for it. I'm new to writing MCU fics and hope I got the vibe right. I really hope everyone enjoys it!! Please don't hesitate to scream at me about Infinity War or anything else MCU-related

****Steve stands next to the remaining Avengers around a lake glowing vaguely green. It’s dark. The wind batters him. He still can’t feel wind without seeing what remained of Bucky blowing away like loose sand in the desert. Without thinking of losing him _again_. His uniform is warm, but his shield—the new one that T’Challa gave him—is as cold as ice.

“So this is it,” Natasha says.

“This is it,” Steve repeats. Days of gathering intelligence, interviewing survivors, checking records. All of it has lead them—Natasha, Bruce, Thor, and Clint, who found them after—to this lake. “It’s down there.”

Tony has not been heard from.

“There’s something in the atmosphere,” Bruce says suddenly. “It’s coming toward us.”

Natasha reaches for a gun and Clint loads his bow. Steve steps toward the nearing light.

“It’s going to crash land,” Bruce says.

The radio by the edge of the lake crackles like dry leaves snapping. “Crash? Ye of little faith, Bruce. You won’t catch me if I fall?”

Steve nearly drops his shield.

“How dare you have all the fun without me? I mean, come on!”

Tony Stark is alive.

 

#

 

Tony doesn’t feel alive. Peter’s ashes are still on his clothes. He’s had numerous panic attacks. The ship he and Nebula built to get him back to Earth is basically a tin can.

Life is fucking great.

But.

He found the coordinates of where the Avengers planned to gather, and is going to them.

He is a mechanic, after all, as Harley so gleefully reminded him. Another kid who knew Tony better than he knew himself. But Harley is safe. Maybe. He doesn’t know if anyone in the universe is really safe. Peter…

What’s left of Peter is still on his filthy hands. Metaphorically and literally.

But.

“This feels like everyone making plans without me. High schoolers end friendship over things like this.”

He knows how to make jokes.

And he knows how to land even shitty, patchwork spaceships. He’s a goddamn genius.

“Tony?” Bruce asks over the radio. “Are you okay?”

“Top notch. Who’s there?”

Static answers him. He grits his teeth and manages to right the ship. He’s going to have to land quick. He grabs the controls Nebula showed him how to use.

_Take off your suit. What are you?_

Genius.

He’s on the ground. On Earth.

 

#

 

A sorry excuse for a spaceship skids across the barren land and teeters on the edge of the lake. Steve knows who’s about to step out.

 

#

 

Tony inhales deeply.

Who knows who’s going to greet him?

 

#

 

Steve hangs back as Tony Stark descends from the steps like a god stepping onto Earth. Even battered, bruised, and covered in dirt, Tony has a king’s walk. The same gait that made Steve want to light into a dozen punching bags.

But something’s off. His shirt is bloodied. He has days worth of stubble. Dirt coats his shirt and pants.  

“I really am insulted,” Tony says. Even his voice is off. It doesn’t have the same arrogance from years ago. Nor the raw anger from Siberia. Not that Steve could judge. He never tried to get in contact. “After all the holiday party invites, you all were obviously about to dive into that glowing lake _without me_.” He whips off sunglasses despite it being night.

Steve’s about to make a comment. Something about the world not revolving around Tony. Then, he realizes the dirt isn’t dirt at all.

It’s ash.

Whose?

Tony turns to him.

 

#

 

Steve Rogers looks incredibly heroic. With a dark uniform and beard to boot, this is not the same Captain America who fought alongside him in the Battle of New York. Not even the one who dragged his parents’ murderer from Siberia. How many versions of Steve Rogers are there?

This one is staring straight at Tony.

“I was going to call, but I thought it would be awkward.” Tony doesn’t know what else to say. “You know, like, how long is too long?”

Steve nods stiffly. “I see you haven’t changed.”

Tony wants to laugh. Hasn’t changed. He’s been changing and changing and changing ever since Afghanistan, and very few people want to notice. With him, people see what they want to see. Sometimes, it’s easier to give them what they expect.

It was even easier with Peter, who had very few expectations.

But. _But, but, but._

He’s gone.

Tony wants to get him back, and he’ll work with anyone who will help him do that.  

“So what’s this?” Tony asks.

“Time stone,” Natasha says. “An agent came from the future and said it was here.”

“Who?”

“Does it matter?” Steve asks. “It’s here, and we’re going to use it to get the others.”

“And that will bring everyone back?” Tony’s heart is pounding. He can’t have another panic attack. Not here.

“That’s what we’re hoping.”

Tony would prefer certainty, but hope is good enough.

 

#

Steve rides next to Tony as they drive back to base.

The last time they saw each other, Tony ripped Bucky’s arm from his body. Then, Steve shoved his shield into Tony’s suit.

Now they’re allies again. Steve has no idea what to say. He makes a list in his head.

_Time, space, power, mind, soul, reality._

They have the time stone.

 

#

 

Natasha drives them to a building in the Wakandan desert, where Rhodey is waiting with a talking raccoon. Not the strangest thing Tony has seen. He wants to be surprised. Even fascinated. Instead, he’s fucking numb. _Fantastic._ An anthropomorphic raccoon shows up and he can’t even appreciate it.

Rhodey hugs him. Tony actually closes his eyes and leans his head against his shoulder like a damsel in distress. He can’t bring himself to care, because apparently everyone else who he loves or trusts is dust.

“Happy?” he asks, because it’s the easier of the two. Still excruciating.

Rhodey’s mouth is in a grim line.

“Pepper.”

“She’s fine, Tony.”

Relief fills his chest.

It somewhat withers when he sees Steve staring at him.

“The base isn’t much,” Rhodey says, showing them inside. “But it’s a start, and we don’t think Thanos can find it. There’s a working lab for you and Bruce.” The walls are dark; there are four bedrooms with cots. Bruce and Natasha take one. Clint takes another. Rhodey’s room is filled with maps and various weapons. Which means…

One bedroom left with two rickety cots.

“Rhodey, is this punishment for—”

“I’m right here,” Steve mutters.

“Are you happy about it? Sharing a room with me?” Tony turns to see Steve’s grim expression. Good. He likes vindication. Better than soul-crushing anxiety. “That’s what I thought.”

“Stop pretending you’re actually going to sleep,” Rhodey says. “You’ve been telling me you couldn’t since New York for years.”

Shit. Tony did _not_ want that information falling into Steve’s hands. He prefers that his tragic backstory requires at least Level 4 clearance or a strong friendship.

As Rhodey leads them to a central room with various tables—Tony guesses it’s to be his and Bruce’s lab—Steve comes to his side.

“Do you have PTSD?” Steve murmurs.

“Do you have a basic understanding of privacy?” It’s harsh. Tony knows that much. He can’t talk about mental health with the man who’s a part of so many of his problems.

Steve grimaces and takes the seat at the head of the table. Everyone looks at him without comment. Just like that, it’s like before New York.

 

#

 

Steve did not see Tony as the type to have PTSD. He should have. PTSD doesn’t discriminate. He and Bucky both had their nights, despite the safety of Wakanda. Nights where Bucky stared out the window without saying a word or Steve woke from nightmare after nightmare. He still has nightmares. Only Bucky isn’t there to comfort him.

He looks at the people in front of him.

Natasha, infallible as always.

Clint, loyal enough to leave his family.

Thor, with pain in his eyes but a kind smile.

Bruce, fidgety but calm.

Rhodey, another soldier who understands duty.

Tony, glaring at him stubbornly. They were thorns in each other’s sides, but somehow, both of them had flourished around the intrusion. Been better for it. When they tore away, both of them suffered in their own way.

But there’s no time to think about that.

“We have the time stone,” Steve says. “Now that we have that, we can get the others. Tony.” He forces himself to look Tony Stark in the eye and think about the universe rather than Siberia and betrayal. “We need a gauntlet for Thor to wield.”

After a moment, Tony grins and holds his hand over his heart dramatically. “I thought you would never ask.”

“It wasn’t a marriage proposal,” Natasha says.

“Of course. I’m saving myself for another. Bruce?”

“Don’t think Pepper would be happy with that,” Bruce quips.

“I’ll do it.” Tony quirks an eyebrow and smiles. It doesn’t reach his eyes. Nobody’s surprised, least of all Steve. _Something’s missing._ “Do you want it more or less flashy than Thanos’s? It looked like he was compensating.”

They’re the Avengers again.

 

#

 

“Who did you lose?” Steve asks that night when they’re both laying in their cots.

“My kid,” Tony replies.

Steve’s eyebrows shoot into his hairline.

“Not like that.” God, Pepper has given him that same look. “I just…” Tony motions at nothing. He just obsessively builds new tech for Peter. Listens to the narrative voicemails Peter leaves. Drops what he’s doing if the suit gives him alerts. Shit. Okay. Maybe, on some level—some deep, _deep_ level—Peter was his kid. Sort of. “He works for me. With me. _Shit_.”

“Having a hard time admitting that you care?”

“I have daddy issues. Sue me. It’s trendy.” He folds his arms over his chest and stares at the ceiling like a pouting teenager. As soon as Steve falls asleep, he can go back to the lab without a lecture about being rested for the mission tomorrow. “You lose somebody?”

Steve is quiet for a long time. _Victory._ Tony sits up before Steve whispers, “Bucky.”

Great. His parents’ murderer.

“He’s only been out of cryo for a few months, and I…” Steve trails off. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this. You don’t want to hear about him.”

“No,” Tony replies. “I really don’t.”

When Steve falls asleep, he leaves to work on the new gauntlet.

 

#

 

They decide to go after the space stone first. The plan is supposed to be simple: Thor, Steve, and Tony use the time stone to travel to Asgard and take it before Hela—Thor’s _sister_ , because he has one of those, apparently, and she’s murderous—destroys the planet.

Tony thinks it will go smoothly.

It does not, and it’s all Steve’s fault.

Well, most of it is Steve’s fault.

Tony poking at Steve until he shouted, the royal guards arresting both of them, Thor having to leave the space stone unattended while he bailed them out and came up with a half-assed explanation about their presence, losing track of the stone temporarily—that may have been partially Tony’s fault. He can admit that. There are a lot of things that take at least two people. Ballroom dancing. Sex. Arguing.

Steve didn’t get into an argument by himself.

“What happened while I was gone?” Thor asks when they secure the stone.

Both Steve and Tony grimace and turn away.

At least they can agree on something.

  


#

 

Steve updates his list: time, space.

Thor relates the story to Rhodey, whose brow furrows deepers as he talks.

“Both of you, wait in the lab,” Rhodey snaps when he finishes. “That’s an order.”

 

#

 

Steve paces. Tony works on the gauntlet.

Rhodey sweeps in like a goddamn hurricane. A thrill shoots through Tony—there’s nothing more entertaining than Rhodey when he’s loud-mad. Quiet-mad is a different story. He needs something to think about besides Peter’s ashes or Steve shouting at him or the gauntlet.

Steve opens his mouth to speak, but Rhodey shoots him a dark look. “Do I need to remind you, _Captain_ , that I outrank you? If I need to call this a military operation to get control of you, I won’t hesitate to do so. You need to respect your superiors.”

“You tell him, Rhodey,” Tony calls.

“And you.” Rhodey gets quiet. So much for his entertainment. “This is a small building, a small team, and a small operation. If you feel the need to piss off every single person involved, go for it. But you’re going to find that it’ll feel a hell of a lot smaller when you do.”

Silence stretches between them.

“I don’t care about what happened in Germany or Siberia or anywhere,” Rhodey continues. He points to his legs, to Steve’s black uniform, to the bags under Tony’s eyes. “I think we can cut our losses and say enough is enough. For this. You both lost people. You both want to get them back. Find your similarities.”

Tony understands.

This is Nick Fury throwing bloodied Captain America trading cards on the table.

“Figure it out,” Rhodey says, and leaves them alone.

 

#

 

“We can work together for this,” Steve says later.

“For this,” Tony agrees. Because despite his trouble with Steve, he would really prefer if half the world didn’t remain dust. Especially Peter.

“Then you never have to see me again.”

Tony’s about to snip back, but the words are caught in his throat.

Did he carry a cellphone with one number all this time just to have another fight? To watch Steve—someone who knew his father, someone who wanted to help people just as much as he did, someone he wanted to call a friend—walk out of his life again?

 

#

 

Tony wakes up unable to breathe. Dust is choking him, filling his throat like water pouring into a glass. It’s going to pour over his lips. Chest. Hands. The ashes had been all over his hands. Peter’s ashes. _You’re alright_ , he’d said. Liar. _Liar, liar, liar._

“Tony?”

The ashes are filling his ears. He can’t hear.

“Tony, we’re going to count to ten. You’re going to breathe. Ready? One, two.”

It’s Steve. Steve is talking to him. Steve hates him. Steve drove the shield into his chest, and he _couldn’t fucking breathe._

“Three, four, five.”

Numbers. He knows numbers. He was in Afghanistan for three months. Pepper fell two hundred feet. Peter was seventeen years old. He and numbers are old friends.

“Six, seven, eight.”

Breathing is supposed to be easy. He couldn’t breathe underwater. He couldn’t breathe in space. Apparently he can’t breathe now, either.  

“Nine, ten. Deep breaths.”

Tony inhales. Steve crouches in front of him wearing a white t-shirt and boxers, his fucking heroic jawline clenched and eyes bright.

“Welcome back,” he says.

“Fine. Maybe do I have a _tad_ of PTSD” Tony wants it to be flippant. It’s not. He coughs and wipes tears from his eyes. Great. He’s crying in front of Captain America. “How’d you know to do that?”

Steve sits cross-legged on the floor, his shield to the side. “Bucky. When I had asthma attacks, he counted me through every one. Panic attacks aren’t much different.” He closes his eyes. “Everything good about me, Bucky had a part in. The rest is all me.”

They sink into a dark abyss, the same they’ve been stuck since Siberia.

“I’d like credit for a few of the bad things,” Tony says. Steve chuckles. “I like the reputation. I was the one who corrupted Captain America.” He takes a good, long look at what Steve’s wearing. T-shirt. Boxers. Socks. Mussed hair. Dog tags around his neck. Shield. “You are a _sight_.”

“I heard a thud and thought danger.” Steve picks up his shield.

“New uniform design?”

“No.”

“I can include lasers?”

Steve laughs. It’s nothing like his humorless chuckle or fake public laugh, but something natural and unpolished. It feels like being surrounded by diamonds and picking a jagged rock as a favorite. “We’ll talk.”

 

#

 

Steve gears up when Natasha and Clint return with a lead on the power stone. It’s so easy to become Captain America. Erskine said not to lose what made him Steve Rogers, but when Steve has lost so much, it’s difficult not to just let go. Letting go means less pain. A softer landing to his descent into history.

Tony, too, is preparing his suit.

It’s their first mission since they nearly cost the team the space stone.

“What was your first mission ever?” Tony asks as he tinkers.

Steve closes his eyes. He imagines Howard flying the plane, Peggy sitting next to him, Bucky stumbling across the narrow walkway, the fire, Red Skull.

“Earth to Captain?”

“Bucky got captured,” he blurts without thinking. He touches the dog tags around his neck. “Nobody else was going to look because they thought he was dead. I found him strapped to a table with needle marks on his arms and cigarette burns on his chest. But alive.”

Steve leaves their room to find the others without waiting for a response so Tony can’t see the tears prickling his eyes.

 

#

 

Tony watches Steve leave.

_But alive._

Why did none of the stories ever mention Barnes being tortured like that?

It hits him that Steve and Barnes most likely didn’t mention it. Just let it slide away as a forgotten part of the legend of Captain America. Everyone liked to remember that the captain went for an entire regiment.

Not only his best friend.

 

#

 

Time, space, power.

Tony saved Steve’s life in the fight to get the stone. He’d been falling, falling from a crumbling cliff. Tony swept in to catch him.

“You left the fight,” Steve had gasped once he was on solid ground.

“Believe it or not,” Tony had said, “I want you alive.”

 _After all I’ve done to you?_ Steve wanted to ask.

He didn’t.

 

#

 

Tony doesn’t actively look for trouble. Most of the time. He’s only looking for a glass of water when he finds Steve in his makeshift lab, the glow of the stones rendering him tricolored, green, purple, and blue like the bad jacket he wore in the eighties. He thinks Steve’s studying the newly gained space stone, the one that began everything for him, but he reaches toward the green light like Jay fucking Gatsby.

Tony clears his throat. “Are you taking the time stone for a joyride?”

Steve leaps into the air like a startled cat. Tony wishes he had a video so he could gif the moment and watch it spread through Twitter like a virus.

“I want to see something,” Steve says. He’s in his uniform, but doesn’t have his shield. Without it, he looks like a regular soldier. A semi-regular man with a god-like physique Tony would kill for.

“I want to go with,” Tony replied. “Insurance policy.”

Steve clenches his jaw. “It’s personal.”

“So is bringing back half the world’s population.”

“Fine.”

They leave.

 

#

 

They arrive on a snowy mountainside with train tracks curving through the snow like veins. Tony shivers. He wants to crack a joke, but Steve’s dark uniform, dramatic against the white backdrop, and cloud eyes, stop him.

This is no time for his coping mechanisms.

Three men get on a zipline. The first is Steve in the brightest and most _American_ of all his uniforms. The second is Barnes. Steve’s breath hitches. He inches toward Barnes. Tony doesn’t think he realizes. The third is another soldier.

All three land on the train effortlessly despite only one being a super soldier.

They disappear inside. The train’s coming.

Faster.

Faster.

Faster.

Steve and Barnes appear on the outside of the train. The bar Barnes is holding onto desperately cracks on one side. Steve reaches out.

The other side comes loose, and Barnes is falling, his arms stretched toward Steve.

Tony knows how the rest of the story goes.  

They stand in the snow for a long time. Chills prickle Tony’s arms, working from his fingers to his hands and upwards. He rubs them together, but Steve stands statuesque against the wind, eyes fixed on the spot where Barnes disappeared.

“I wanted to see how close I was,” Steve whispers. “To saving him.”

Not at all. Tony doesn’t say so. “I watched Pepper fall. And Rhodey.” He pushes away memories of her plummeting into the fire, of Rhodey dropping so fast that he _knew_ he wouldn’t get to him in time. “There’s nothing else you could’ve done.”

“I could’ve followed,” Steve murmurs. His face is blank. Dangerously blank. Tony knows that look intimately. He grips Steve’s shoulder and doesn’t speak until he’s sure that Captain America—no, Steve Rogers—isn’t going to throw himself off a mountain after Bucky Barnes. _What is it about Bucky?_ Tony had suspicions, but it was so far from the narrative his father and the rest of history painted that he couldn’t bring himself to ask outright.

“Let’s go somewhere else,” Tony says.

“Where?”

“Somewhere that can explain him.”

#

 

Steve understands what Tony’s asking. Show him something to explain why he would give up everything again and again for Bucky Barnes. A part of him wants to tell the truth, to say it aloud after so long, but the words won’t come.

The only way is to take him to _before._ Steve’s good at dualities. There’s good and evil. Captain America and Steve Rogers. With and without Bucky. Before and after. Before the war. Before he was a national hero. Before they killed, before they were even the Howling Commandos. Before they were history.

He takes Tony to their Brooklyn apartment. A step into history. It’s a summer in the late thirties. The Brooklyn heat swallows him, a marked change from the mountainside. He forgot how _small_ the apartment was, how there was a scorched circle on the ceiling from Bucky’s attempt at a fancy dinner, how he scattered his textbooks like casualties of war. Steve looks at the dirty clothes, at the blankets gathered on one bed, at anything _but_ where he knows they are.

Tony draws a sharp breath.

Steve knows this evening well.

They’re on the fire escape. Bucky is stretched out languidly in a way he never recaptured, before or after the fall, his arms over his head and feet kicked up, his bare chest unmarked by scars, both arms flesh. He smiles up at Steve, because his head’s on Steve’s lap. And Steve? He’s all angles and jutted-out bones, as sharp as a knife. A weapon-to-be. But he runs his hands through Bucky’s short hair and laughs freely.

Whoever these men were, they were long gone.

Outside, it thunders. Tony flinches, like he expects the weather to drive the past version of Steve and Bucky inside. Steve knows this memory better. Bucky stands up and tosses his head back in laughter as the rain pours over them. Steve whoops with joy and leaps to his feet. The skinnier Steve is swept into a kiss. This Steve bows his head.

He could never be that person again.

Steve swallows hard. “He always loved the rain.”

“And you love him,” Tony says.

“Yes,” Steve agrees.

Tony’s jaw twists in a way that doesn’t look comfortable. “I’m guessing it wasn’t a one time, heat of the moment experiment?”

Steve stares at him for a long time before he manages to say, “No.”

“That,” Tony says, “makes _so_ much sense.” Like he expected it. Like Steve hadn’t tried to erase exactly how much he loved James Buchanan Barnes when he left the ice. “I knew there had to be more to the schtick textbooks sold. Every hero needs a shocking secret. You know about the panic attacks, but there’s also—”

“Stop,” Steve snaps, harsher than he intended. “Stop.”

Tony stops.

For a moment. “You were a stick,” he says.

“Just over a hundred pounds.”

“And he looks…” Tony’s eyes are fixed on Bucky. “Young.”

“We were,” Steve says slowly, watching Bucky grin and turn his face into Steve’s stomach. “He was good with a gun, and there were people to kill.” When he puts it like that, it’s simple. It contains his anger over the world chewing up Bucky Barnes and spitting him out. “We’re going back.”

 

#

 

Tony has another anxiety attack.

And another.

And another.

Steve helps him every time. Counts breath. Sometimes, Tony knows he’s there. Other times, he doesn’t. He thought seeing Tony Stark stripped of every defense, every stupid joke and sarcastic remark, would bring him comfort. It doesn’t. There’s nothing comforting about watching a man tormented by demons that aren’t there. Tony gasps for breath like a drowning man. Calls out for Pepper, for someone named Peter, for Rhodey. Clutches his chest.

Steve does what he can.

“Do you have medication?” Steve whispers after a bad one.

Tony scoffs. It comes out as a wet, strangled ghost of a sob. “Do you? Arthritis, dementia, some other old person—”

“How long has this been happening?”

Tony pulls his knees to his chest and folds his arms over his chest. In the suit, he seems taller. Even with his cars and three pieces. Barefoot and in pajamas, Tony is as far from Iron Man or even his public person as it gets.

“Ever since New York,” he whispers.

“New York,” Steve repeats. “So you’ve had them for years.”

“Well, it’s a compound situation. I had the whole situation with Pepper, Ultron, you and Barnes going tag-team on me in Siberia, the kid not having a decent sense of self-preservation.” Tony shrugs one shoulder, not looking at Steve. “I manage.”

“Jesus.” Steve rubs his hand over his face.

“Can we focus on the stones?” Tony pushes himself to his feet and stumbles.

Steve catches him. “Sleep, then we’ll talk.” Help him back down onto his bed. Tony tenses, then relaxes. His eyes flutter shut as Steve eases him onto his back and puts the blankets over him.

A knot forms in his stomach.

 

#

 

They’re on a strange ledge. Tony knows about Bucky. Steve knows about the panic attacks. They have all the fragments of the left side of an equation, Tony knows that much.

He just doesn’t know what goes to the right of the equal sign.

 

#

 

With Nebula’s help, they discover that the reality stone is with a man called the Collector.

“Ever been into space, Cap?” Tony asks as he pilots a high-powered vessel for another planet. “You’ll love it. Seventy-five percent of the aliens want to kill us. A fight wherever you go.”

Steve has not. He doesn’t particularly want to fight. Not after seeing Bucky.

He wants another night in bed with Bucky. Sex wouldn’t be unwelcome. Not all. He just wants to be in Bucky’s arms. To trust without a catch. To fall and be caught. To be held. He wraps his fingers around the new vibranium dog tags they had made in Wakanda—they are soldiers, after all. Steve has one with his name, one with Bucky’s. Bucky has— _had_ —the same.

“God, I’m going to fall asleep if you don’t talk to me.” Tony throws half a sandwich at Steve’s head. Misses. Lettuce and mayo splat everywhere. “Are those dog tags?”

“Yes,” Steve says.

“Yours?”

“No.”

“And I thought me and Pepper were lovey-dovey.”

“Shouldn’t you be flying?”

“It’s called multitasking. You conned me into caring about your illicit love affair.”

Steve scoffs and somehow manages to keep Tony silent for the rest of the flight. That’s an accomplishment worth more than almost all his medals.

 

#

As soon as he, Tony, and Natasha find the Collector’s Museum on Knowhere, Steve knows this is no ordinary mission. Maybe it’s space, but the energy flows differently. He sense it. He knows Tony and Natasha do, too. The Collector isn’t there, but something’s off.

They stand back to back in a defensive triangle. It’s too quiet. Natasha’s shoes slide against the floor. Tony’s suit creaks as he steps forward.

Steve inhales.

He’s done this before. Aliens aren’t special enemies just because they’re aliens.

Steve forgets to exhale.

Because Bucky Barnes is standing in front of him. Smiling. Whole. Alive.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” Bucky says.

“Buck,” Steve breathes. Then he remembers. “This isn’t real.”

“It can be.”

Steve blinks, and he’s in a bed. His shirt is off. Sunshine streams through a window. Warmth from the blankets envelopes him. Bucky is curled around him, asleep, breathing gently, the crease between his brow gone, his metal arm gone. Steve runs his fingers through his hair. Bucky smiles in his sleep and moves closer to Steve. He’s so _real_. Solid.

Believable.

“Too early to be awake,” Bucky murmurs sleepily. He rolls on top of Steve and kisses him softly. It’s a promise. A declaration. They’ve always been good at wordless communication. Steve brings his hands to the small of Bucky’s back and runs his hands over the smooth skin. Something catches in his chest.

“This isn’t real,” Steve whispers. “He has scars on his back.”

Bucky draws away and stares at him, biting his reddened lip. “It can be. Stevie, we can choose this reality. Look at how perfect it is.”

Steve kisses this version of Bucky again. How many versions of this man did he love? He wondered if in other universes, they found each other over and over. Every path he took led him back to Bucky. God and fate had to mean something.

“I’m going to find you again,” Steve whispers. “The real you. In my reality.”

Steve finds himself in the Museum again. Bucky’s gone.

Somehow, the warmth remains.

“Something’s manipulating the stone to show us another reality,” Natasha says. She points to a reddish glow. “I think it could be dangerous if you don’t know what it’s doing.”

Steve looks around.

Tony’s gone.

He thinks about the promise of another reality and curses under his breath.

“Get the stone. I’ll find Stark.”

 

#

 

“Stark?”

Nothing.

“Come on, Stark. Whatever you’re seeing, it isn’t real.”

Silence.

“Tony?”

Steve finds Tony staring at a blank wall with tears streaming down his face. He stops. There was a time where he thought Tony Stark was infallible. He figured out he was wrong. Tony wasn’t infallible. Stubborn enough to think so. But mortal. Damaged.

_Oh, God._

What is he seeing?

Tony’s breath hitches.

“Steve!” Natasha calls. “It activated some explosion.”

Steve understands. There’s no time for Tony to leave his false reality on his own terms. A million warnings about not waking sleepwalkers flash through his head. Bucky sometimes sleepwalked, and he never woke him unless he wandered toward a balcony.

An explosion rocks the floor.

“Tony.” He lays his hand on Tony’s shoulder. Flashes of darkness and shadow surround him. Smoke fills his nose. Steve stands in a ruined New York, sirens wailing, dead bodies sprawled over the street in legions. Tony stands in the middle of it all, his mouth open in a silent scream. His eyes are dangerously blank, hands trembling uncontrollably, knees quaking.

Steve yanks his hand back.

Tony isn’t leaving that reality voluntarily.

Steve punches him in the face.

With a gasp, Tony whips around to stare at Steve. For a moment, he looks angry, ready to strike, but his eyes roll back in his head as he pitches forward. Steve catches him and hoists his limp body onto his shoulder.

“Steve!” Natasha shouts. She appears with the stone.

Fire— _real_ fire, the type that would truly kill him—spreads through the Museum.

They run.

Natasha holds the reality stone. Steve holds Tony. Even in the suit, he’s lighter than Steve expected, and crumpled on the floor of the ship, he looks _small._ It’s easy to forget that Tony isn’t a soldier, isn’t someone who willingly volunteered to risk his life for his country. He was kidnapped, put in a bad situation, and made the best of it.

“Tony,” Steve whispers.

Tony gasps.

Steve can’t help the sigh of relief that escapes.

“Did you kiss me to wake me up?” Tony croaks. “I know you’ve wanted to, but we’re both taken, and that would make things—”

“We have the reality stone,” Steve says.

“All thanks to my hard work.” Tony gives a shit-eating grin, and they’re back to semi-normal. For them, at least.

 

#

 

Time, space, power, reality.

Steve overhears Rhodey and Tony talking.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Rhodey asks.

“I’m done with this space-fuckery,” Tony spits. “He saved me, and that’s that.”

 

#

 

“Tell me more about Barnes,” Tony demands. “ _Your_ Barnes. You had an alternate reality. Did you see him?”

“Bucky?” Steve laughs softly. Of course Tony figured it out. For all his vices and flaws, Tony Stark is an unabashed genius. “He flirted with anything that walked. I never worried. He talked big, but never did much about it. He couldn’t sing. I told him as much. Couldn’t make a decent cup of coffee, either, but I never mentioned that. When I was sick—and I was sick a lot—he was always scared to leave. Like if he did, I’d just up and die. I scared him bad one winter. When the fever finally broke, I woke up with every blanket we had piled on me, and he was sobbing on the floor. His head was leaned against the mattress, my shirt bunched up in his hands. I had never seen him cry before. Another time, we didn’t have money for medicine. He took a look at me and left. He came back with what we needed and no explanation. I never asked. I never asked.”

Tony looks at him like the military recruiters used to. Like he wasn’t enough, like they pitied him, like he was something to be sad for. Steve readjusted his gaze. No. Tony wouldn’t pity him. Tony himself hated pity. He’d rather people be mad at him than feel sorry for him.

“He was _Bucky_ ,” Steve says, and a chasm reopens.

“I couldn’t imagine,” Tony replies, “what I would do if that was Pepper.”

Steve understands.

 

#

 

“You don’t talk about your kid much,” Steve says when they’re the first and only people in Tony’s lab. Steve leaves for a recon mission soon. “Peter?”

Tony’s chest tightens. How does he know his name?

“You say his name sometimes. During your attacks.”

When he thinks about Peter, he forgets how to breathe. So he doesn’t. He’s there, an anonymous donor of motivation and bad pop culture references in the back of his mind, but he isn’t _Peter._ If he remains untouchable, he can’t grieve.

“If you don’t want to, I understand.”

But Steve opened himself to grief about Barnes.

“Well, he’s Spider-Man.”

Steve’s jaw drops. “But in Germany—”

“Yeah. You almost got your ass kicked by a fourteen year-old who was swinging around in pajamas until I got ahold of him.” _Until I put him in danger._ He swallows his remorse. He can’t afford to get caught in that loop. “But he’s seventeen now. Too smart for his own good. He’s is devilishly persistent. You know, that kid left me _hundreds_ of messages after Germany with life updates and test scores and everything in between. I listened to every one.”

“You what?”

“What else did I have to do? We ended up calling his whole gig an internship so he can put it on all his applications to fancy schools. He has a martyr’s complex if I’ve ever seen one. He gets into more trouble than I could even imagine, and the little shit’s suit notifies me every time. One time, I’m going to leave him on the edge of a building and watch him logic his way off. No dinner and ice cream after that. Because we do that sometimes.” He’s trying, trying _so hard_ , to be upbeat, but with Steve looking at him with puppy dog eyes that could sway the good Lord Himself, he can’t. “Having him around has made me better. With Pepper. With Rhodey. With everyone. He has heightened senses, but he just knows things.” Tony remembers being on the edge of an anxiety attack, alone and unable to breathe, when Peter walked into the lab like he belonged. If he noticed, he didn’t say anything. Just talked about happy things. Maybe he did notice. Maybe he was better than all of them.

But he’s gone.

“The ashes,” Steve whispers. “They were his, weren’t they?”

Tony desperately wants something to do with his hands. He grabs the gauntlet and a laser cutter. Might as well make his nervous energy useful.

“Tony.”

He whips around to face Steve. “What do you want me to say? Are you so determined to strip back every fucking defense I have? Yes, he knew what was happening because of his powers. Yes, he begged me to make it stop. Yes, he dissolved right in front of me. Couldn’t do shit. Don’t start. I didn’t press about Barnes.”  

Steve bows his head. “I’m sorry.”

It sounds like an apology for more than asking about Peter.

“No,” Tony says. “We should talk about them.”

“We should talk about a lot of things,” Steve replies cautiously.

Tony nods. As direct as he is, Steve approaches sensitive subjects like a dancer in a field of landmines, tiptoeing around explosives until he’s at the epicenter.

He can appreciate not wanting to blow a reforged alliance to hell.

#

 

Tony and Steve end up outside the base. Just the two of them. The sun is setting, filling the desert landscape with orange and pink and yellow. Tony thinks it should be impossible for such beauty to endure after tragedy, but there it is.

“Can I say something?” Steve asks.

“You just did,” Tony replies.

“You are absolutely infuriating.” There was no heat to his words. “Siberia.”

Tony needs a drink. Or ten. “Look, can we make this an _understood_ sort of thing?”

“You don’t have to say anything. But I need to say this.” Steve inhales and looks Tony directly in the eye with a raw gaze that’s pure Steve Rogers—no Captain America. “We’re from different times. I know that’s no excuse, but maybe it explains something about the way I acted. My only precedent for meeting you was Howard, and you and Howard… you’re the same, but you’re not. I was raised in a way where you stood up for yourself on your own terms, but the war caused a lot of that. But we weren’t at war. There needed to be a balance between being controlled by the government and complete independence. I couldn’t see that clearly. I didn’t behave correctly.” Steve finally looks away.

“You did your best,” Tony says lamely. How poetic. Steve pours his heart out, he responds with a meaningless platitude.

“I could’ve been better.” He sniffles. Captain America _sniffles._ Tony looks over, and Steve has tears in his eyes. “So many things are still fresh for me. When I came out of the ice, Bucky had only died a week ago for me. Peggy and all my friends were elderly or gone. I left a part of myself in that plane, and I patched it up with the shield. And when Bucky came back, when I had even the slightest chance of saving him…” Steve laughs. A tear falls. “It felt like God was smiling. I hadn’t believed in God in a long time. It was a chance. We should’ve talked about the Accords, Tony. I should’ve told you about what Bucky did to your parents. I thought I was protecting him, and in a way, I thought I was protecting you.”

“It wasn’t Barnes,” Tony hears himself say. He’s been thinking about this. This is no time for grudges, not when life is so fragile and they’ve both lost so much. Some hatchets are meant to be buried. “It was the Winter Soldier and HYDRA. They turned him into a weapon. If someone shoots you, do you blame the gun or the person?” Tony grips Steve’s shoulder like he did when they were standing on the mountainside. “You fucked up. But I’ll admit that I fucked up, too. Now if you fucked up a little more than me…”

Steve laughs and wipes his eyes. “I did. And I’ll make it up to you.”

“Would it be cheesy to say you already have? Kinda?”

“Yes,” Steve murmurs. “But I’ll take it. Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Forgiving me. You’re a better man than I am.”

 

#

 

Once Steve apologizes, there’s a strange feeling in his chest.

Like something is stitching itself together.

Like something is beginning.

Like something is ending.

After all this time, he never imagined apologizing. He never imagined Tony forgiving him.

It’s nice. Freeing.

 

#

 

“I think we go for the soul stone next,” Bruce says a few days later. “Get the more difficult one before we go back to find Vision and the mind stone. Natasha and I chased rumors while you all were off getting the reality stone, but—”

“Vormir,” Tony says. Steve stares at him with a trademark _why didn’t you tell me_ look, but a sinking sensation is spreading through Tony. He knows what Thanos did to get it. He knows what will have to be done to get it. “It’s on Vormir. Nebula told me in case I needed to find it.”

“So we just go and get it?” Steve asks.

Tony forces himself to look Steve in the eye. He’s lied to him before. He can do it again. “Should be easy peasy.”

“Then I’ll come with you.”

“What part of _easy peasy_ do you not understand?”

“Insurance policy.” Steve smiles grimly.

“Throwing my own words back at me, Cap?” Tony’s hands shake. _He took her to Vormir. He came back with the soul stone. She didn’t._ Someone isn’t returning. It can’t come down to him and Steve. If Steve hadn’t just poured his heart out, he could piss him off. It was so, _so_ easy to do that. But not now. Not after forgiveness.

He’d just have to tell Steve the plan at the last minute.

 

#

 

The feeling doesn’t go away.

Steve wakes up in a cold sweat. _Bucky._ Always Bucky. He laughs in Brooklyn. He watches wide-eyed at the Stark Expo. He takes off a mask and stares Steve down. He punches him over and over. He comes back. He goes into cryo. He leaves, incredibly whole, and they have stolen days in Wakanda.

Always Bucky.

He needs to see him.

Needs to see who they become next.

He pulls on jeans and a black t-shirt—this isn’t a uniform mission—and creeps past Tony’s room to get to the time stone. Nobody’s in the lab. He stands in the abandoned shell of the room. The four stones glow like the lights at Coney Island before the war, like beacons calling him home. He reaches for the time stone.

He lets it take him to the place that feels right.

 

#

 

 _Right_ is apparently a park in New York.

The city hums around him like the chorus of a familiar song, a melody that runs in his blood. Towers surround the patch of green land, warm arms protecting him from everything threatening harm. There aren’t many people. It’s bright outside. Warm. Summer. Later, it will storm. Feeling floods Steve’s chest. This is home, this is who he is, what he knows. This is—

“Steve?”

He turns.

“Oh, God. _Stevie_.”

Bucky throws himself into Steve’s arms.

With a quiet sob, Steve pulls Bucky closer. He’s solid in his arms. Whole. Real. _Real, real, this is real._ Steve pulls away and runs his hands over his back, his chest, his hair, his jaw. Bucky’s eyes are filled with tears, his lower lip trembling.

Steve kisses him, bringing his hands to either side of Bucky’s face. Bucky’s hands slide to his hips. He’s needed this. Needed him.

He kisses him again.

Again.

Again.

It will never be enough.

And in the back of his mind, a question lingers: _When am I?_

“Jesus, Steve,” Bucky murmurs. He tucks vibranium dog tags into his shirt. Hiding them. “Okay. When are you from?”

“What?”

“I need to know. Strange said it was important. How many stones do you have?”

“Four. Time, power, space, reality.”

Bucky pales.

“Did I say something wrong?”

Bucky wraps his arms around Steve and holds him close. He’s still trembling.

“What year is it?”

“A year after we came back. After you won. Because you’re going to win.” Bucky cups Steve’s jaw and studies him carefully. “God. I’ve thought so much about this.”

What was there to think about? Nothing. He never would’ve left Bucky. Never. “Buck, where am I? Now. In this time.”

“Don’t make me answer,” Bucky says. Like he’s said it a thousand times. Like he’s going to keep saying it if he asks again. Done and done. “You have to remember something. I forgive you for what you did. I forgive you, and I forgive Tony.”

Steve notices that he says Tony. Not Stark.

“Bucky!” someone calls. It’s a teenager, with sandy curls and a familiar athletic gait. He’s standing next to a blanket and picnic basket with two other people. Steve steps toward it, but Bucky blocks him.

Pepper, her blonde hair pulled into a ponytail, her hands rested on her rounded stomach.

Tony, sunglasses on, waving his hands like he does when he cracks a joke.

“We’re going to…” The teenager trails off when his eyes land on Steve. He takes a step back. Catches the edge of the blanket. Tony turns with his arrogant smile, but it vanishes as soon as he sees Steve.

Tony stands and stares.

His expression is ruined.

When she notices Tony staring, Pepper looks, too. She sees Steve. Stands. She slips her arm around his waist. The teenager—Steve guesses that this is Peter—puts his hand on Tony’s shoulder. Peter, Tony, Pepper, Bucky.

Tony’s wrecked eyes.

Pepper and Peter watching Tony like he’s going to have a breakdown.

Bucky’s trembling lip. His protective hands on his chest.

Steve doesn’t want to put two and two together.

“Bucky,” Steve whispers.

“I’m not saying anything, Steve,” Bucky replies. “But Tony fixes it. There’s a book coming out about you, soon. It’s about you. They’re including everything. _Everything._ Your art, before Erskine, after. The writer interviewed me. About us. Everyone’s gonna know who you are, Steve. Tony’s writing the foreword.”

“Tony?” Steve whispers.

Bucky takes his hand. “Tony.”

He looks past Bucky to Tony and nods. Pepper and Peter both move closer, but Tony gently pries himself away. Then, he salutes.

_You don’t get to ask me to salute like one of your soldiers. I’m not a fucking soldier._

With his free hand, he returns the gesture.

“I love you,” Bucky murmurs. “So much. I love you, Steve.”

 

#

 

“Where’d you go this time?” Tony asks when he returns to the base. He’s in the lab, because of course he is.

_I forgive you for what you did. I forgive you, and I forgive Tony._

“I hope you’re utilizing that to go back and get some—”

“If you see something that hasn’t happened yet,” Steve interrupts, “does that make it true? Does it have to happen, now?”

Tony rolls his eyes and turns back to tinkering with his suit. “Do I look like the wizard? You need a hobby besides lusting after the past, Cap.”

Heart hammering in his chest, Steve puts the stone away.

 

#

 

“Why don’t you want to go after the soul stone?” Steve asks.

Because Tony knows the cost to get it.

“You can tell me.”

Tell Steve that a team member will have to kill him? Not likely.

“Are you giving me the silent treatment?”

Tony’s the fucking _champ_ at the silent treatment. He gave it to Howard for days, once. Not that Howard really noticed.

“Tony. You know we have to do this.”

“God, you’re persistent. Do you want another medal?” Tony snaps. _Go away. Get mad at me._ He’s also the champ at pushing people away. He has to have some people skills besides being a genius.

Except Steve knows his game.

“Let’s leave tonight,” Steve says. Insistent.

Tony swallows hard. No more delaying. “Fine. Tonight.”

He’ll die tonight.

 

#

 

“So this is Vormir,” Tony says.

A mountain looms in front of them, beckoning them up into the misty atmosphere. A reply lodges in Steve’s throat. He can’t find the energy for wit.

_I forgive you for what you did._

Why does it feel like he’s running out of time?

 

#

 

Tony knows he’s running out of time.

He climbs the mountain next to Steve, maintaining a steady stream of banter for both their sakes. Well. He doesn’t know if it’s helping Steve. He just knows he can’t think about Rhodey clapping him on the shoulder before they left and not knowing, Pepper waiting for someone who isn’t going to come home, Peter coming back and finding him dead.

No, distractions never hurt anyone.

Steve cracks a smile every few minutes, but for the most part, treks upward in his dark uniform with his new shield from Wakanda.

Tony hangs onto the smiles and launches into a story about Pepper.

“Do you love her?” Steve interrupts.

“Pepper?” An ache spreads through Tony’s chest. Pepper, who took care of him. Pepper, who gave as much sass as she took. Pepper, who saved him time and time again. “Yes.”

“I haven’t loved many people,” Steve says. “Family, friend, or otherwise.”

Tony refuses to look Steve in the eye. For him, there’s Pepper. Happy. Rhodey. Peter. Even Steve. At a time, he loved Steve like a brother and friend. Then he didn’t. He thought the shared battles, the comradery, everything they experienced, had been lost.

But love can be relearned.

 

#

 

A lot of people have loved Captain America, but never Steve Rogers. Steve thinks about love a lot. Tries to define it. Love is sharing. Love in the rain pattering down in Brooklyn. Love is knowing the ups and downs of another person, riding a current with them until they evened.

He never thought of love as currency until he heard Tony Stark muttering about exchanging a loved one for the soul stone in his sleep.

But that fell under his ultimate definition:

Love is sacrifice.

He loves the world enough to die for it. Loves Bucky enough to give him a second chance at life. And on some level, he loves Tony Stark enough to save him.

Tony just doesn’t know.

They reach the top of the mountain, where Red Skull greets them. Steve should be surprised, but somehow, it feels right.

“Captain America,” Red Skull says.

“We want the soul stone,” Steve replies.

“That’s…” It’s not often Tony Stark is speechless. Steve wishes he had more time to savor the moment.

Red Skull leads them to a ledge.

“The stone demands a sacrifice,” he says. “In order to take the stone, you must lose that which you love. A soul for a soul.”

Steve straightens his shoulders. Sets down his shield. “It should be me.”

 

#

 

Of course Steve beat him to it.

“You think I love you?” Tony snaps.

Steve smiles sadly. “Yes.”

He’s right.

 

#

 

“ _No_.” Tony folds his arms like a stubborn toddler.

“Think about Rhodey and Pepper,” Steve says. “What about Peter?” He knows it’s a low blow. If it keeps Tony alive, he’ll take it.

“You have your super-soldier boyfriend. Barnes will wring my neck if he finds out that I killed you. No way.”

“Bucky forgave me,” Steve says. “He knew. He forgave me, and he forgave you. I went to see him the night I took the time stone.”

“How do you know it was about this?” Tony begins to pace. Red Skull opens his mouth, but Tony turns on his heel. “Can it, tomato-face.”

“ _Tony_.”

“How do you know it wasn’t about the dishes or a squabble in Wakanda or some prehistoric fight about—”

“Tony, please.”

“You were so damn eager to kill me in Siberia. Just do it now.”

“I know what you’re trying to do.”

“Yes, because you’re a machine. A science experiment. Did they program you to know everything, Captain America?”

“You can’t make me mad enough to kill you.” Steve grips Tony’s shoulders so he can’t escape. Finally, Tony looks him in the eye. “I’ve been so lucky. I’ve lived in two centuries and saved so many people. I got to be Captain America and meet some of the best people on Earth and other planets. Tony, I thought I’d never see Bucky again after the fall. That was a miracle. I never thought I’d get more time with him, but I did. He’ll understand, Tony.”

Tony clenches his jaw. “But—”

“Bucky and I have found each other again and again. We always do, no matter what. I know I’ll see him again. He’ll heal.” Steve slips the dog tag with his name off. Presses it into Tony’s shaking hands. “Give this to him when he comes back. You won’t even have to say anything. He’ll know. Take care of him for me, Tony. Please.” Steve lets his tears fall. “He loves the rain. He’s always loved the rain.”

“It should be me,” Tony whispers.

“No.” Steve steps toward the ledge.

“I can’t kill you, Steve.” Tony presses his hands to his mouth. “I can’t.”

“For the universe, you can. It’s okay.”

And it is. Steve couldn’t lie to him. Not now.

“I’m glad it’s you, Tony. I trust you to do it. I know you can save everyone.”

Tony puts both his hands on his chest. Gently. LIke he’s comforting him rather than preparing to kill him. “Will the fall kill you quickly?” he whispers.

“Yes.”

“You weren’t as much as a pain in the ass as I expected,” Tony whispers.

A laugh escapes. “Neither were you.”

Tony curls his fingers into his uniform.

“You have to let me go, Tony. You have to push.”

“I’ll make sure he’s safe. And I’ll make sure everyone remembers you.” He disguises a sob as a cough. Steve knows him well enough not to believe it. “Not Captain America. Captain Steve Rogers.”

And with that, Steve is falling.

He closes his eyes.

Peggy smiles at him before he becomes Captain America, Howard laughs in the plane, Erskine tells him to remember what makes him unique, Tony grips his shoulder.

Then, Bucky’s next to him, holding out his arms, waiting for him. _Come back to me_.

That’s the thing Steve knows about falling—he’s never minded when it was for Bucky.

 

#

 

As Steve falls with his eyes closed, Tony falls to his knees.

He knows nothing else.

 

#

 

Tony wakes with the soul stone in his hand.

He killed Captain America.

No.

Steve Rogers. He killed Steve Rogers, Happy is gone, Peter is gone, Pepper’s alone, and he’s going to make Thanos pay.

 

#

 

Tony stares at the five stones in front of him at the base.

_Time._

Clint visits him first. He tries to speak about duty and choices. Tony ignores him.

_Power._

Natasha comes to him next. She leaves without speaking.

_Space._

Thor sits with him for a long time. He mentions losing his brother. The brother he hated, the brother he loved, the brother who wasn’t his brother by blood, the brother who was killed.

_Reality._

Bruce brings him coffee. Tony doesn’t drink it. Bruce drapes a blanket over his shoulder. Tony leaves it on.

_Soul._

Finally, Rhodey comes. Rhodey, with his leg braces and knowing eyes. Because Rhodey knows. He can’t deceive Rhodey.

“I’m so sorry, Tones,” Rhodey whispers.

“I killed him for that,” Tony murmurs. “I let him talk me into it.”

Rhodey grips his shoulder. “Tony. We’re going to beat Thanos.”

His tears fall onto the table besides the stones.

 

#

 

He wants to sit out the mission to find the mind stone.

He doesn’t.

He just tries not to think about Steve travelling with the time stone as he goes.

He watches Shuri—a goddamn genius, he makes a note to expand the “internship” program—remove the mind stone from Vision’s forehead. She plops it into Tony’s hand.

“You will beat him,” she says. “Princess’s orders.”

 

#

.

Tony finishes the new gauntlet and gathers everyone

“We’re going to do this,” Tony says. He looks at Natasha, at Clint, at Thor, at Bruce. They are not the same people—or gods—they were in New York. He isn’t. “Because if we can’t save the world, you can be damn well sure we’ll avenge it.”

He thinks of Peter. Of Steve. Of HYDRA torturing a young Bucky Barnes.

“We’ll avenge everyone we lost.”

 

#

 

Time, space, power, reality, soul, mind.

They fight Thanos again in Wakanda, because fate and time travel have a sense of humor. Tony gets in another hit.

Thor wields the gauntlet, eyes glowing a bright white, axe clenched in his other hand.

Before Thanos dies, Tony approaches him.

“This is for Steve Rogers,” he says.

And they win.

 

#

 

Tony has never liked waiting.

But even he can’t make those who were lost return faster.

They appear gradually, fading into existence. Maybe if Steve was there, he’d make a bad joke about shitty transitions on PowerPoints and watch him struggle to understand the reference. He isn’t, though, so he doesn’t make the joke.

Wanda returns.

Sam returns.

Tony holds his breath.

The shape of the Iron Spider suit is a suggestion in the air, a brief, fleeting image that turns more solid. There’s someone next to him, a man in a dark uniform with long hair. A metal arm glints in the sun.

Tony exhales.

Bucky Barnes has a solid hold on Peter’s shoulder with his flesh hand. Of course he does. Peter’s eyes dart around, but Bucky scans the perimeter like a soldier, positioned in front of Peter as if to protect him from potential danger.

There’s a dull ringing in Tony’s ears as he clutches the vibranium dog tag.

He’s frozen.

 _Bucky will understand_.

“Mr. Stark? Mr. Stark!” Peter sprints toward him, a wide grin on his face, and stops in front of him. Tony still can’t move. Peter. Spider-Man. Who died in his arms, who begged not to go. His _kid._ “Are we there yet? Because in the car, it was super awkward, and I think on Titan—”

Tony crushes Peter against his chest. Without hesitation, Peter wraps his arms around Tony, and that’s that. Tony’s sinking to his knees, Peter supporting his descent, and crying into the poor kid’s shirt. He shouldn’t be. A genius billionaire shouldn’t cry into a seventeen year-old’s shirt. Especially not after he came back from whatever fucking neverland he was in. No. He’s supposed to be the strong one, but has a hand on his shoulder and is whispering, _It’s alright, Mr. Stark, you’re safe._

At least he’s going to have the courtesy not to crumble to dust.

“Mr. Stark, you need to say something, because—”

“Spiderling, I’m going to need you to appreciate that I’m a mess right now.” Tony pulls away and coughs, then manages to get to his feet. Good. He’s standing again. Standing means control. Peter stares at him earnestly. “Good to see you, kid.”

Peter ducks his head. “I’m sorry for—”

“We’re going to have to work on your apologizing for things that aren’t your fault.” He looks past Peter to Barnes. He’s scanning the crowd of Avengers, looking past Sam and Natasha and searching. Tony wants to crumple again.

“We looked out for each other in the other world,” Peter says. “Me and Bucky.” Peter, too, begins to glance around. “Where’s Captain America? Did he help?”

Tony claps Peter’s shoulder. “Wait here for me, kid.” Of course the kid follows him when he strides over to Barnes. When Barnes sees him, he recoils, but doesn’t run away.

“Stark?” he says.

And just like that, Tony can’t speak. He reaches into his pocket where Steve’s dog tags are. _Take care of him for me, Tony_. Peter’s looking at him strangely now, too. Great. Now would be a great time for a joke, but he can’t think of one for the life of him.

“What is it, Stark?” Bucky asks.

“Steve…” Tony murmurs.

Bucky clenches his fists. “Stark?” he whispers. His voice is a ruined croak, and Peter looks between the two of them so quickly Tony thinks his head is about to fly off. “Where is he? Please. I need to know where he is.”

Tony thinks Bucky knows before he drops the chain into his flesh hand. His face crumples like a building collapsing in on itself. Tony knows that grief intimately.

“He died to save the world,” Tony says. The rest of the story can come later. “I know about Brooklyn, Barnes. I know about the fire escape and the rain.”

Confusion flits across Barnes’s face. “He told you?”

“He told me everything.”

Barnes bites his lip. There are tears in his eyes, and he turns away from Peter as he wipes them away. All around them, people are coming together—T’Challa and Shuri, Sam and Rhodey, Rocket and the rest of the guardians—but Bucky is falling apart. Tony can see it.

And damn it, he’s not going to let it happen.

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” Tony says. “We’re going to get Spidey back to scary Aunt May, who will hopefully not ground him for life when she finds out he hitched a ride on a space-donut—”

“Hey!”

“And, you, good sergeant, are going to come back to the compound with me for multiple bottles of whatever suits your fancy and a long talk.” He extends his hand to Barnes.

He studies Tony’s outstretched hand. _Please take it._ Of all the things he’s done, this is one of the most important. Tony’s never liked breaking promises, especially not important ones.  

He steps closer to Barnes. “Your partner died to save the world. I want you to help me make it better.”

Barnes takes his hand.

 

#

 

A week later, Barnes is moved into the compound.

Tony finds him sitting on the roof sobbing the same night he moves in.

He told him what Steve had done. What he had done to Steve.

Wordlessly, he sits next to Barnes.

“I’m not surprised,” Barnes whispers. “I’ve always known he would sacrifice everything. I just wish I got the chance to say goodbye. I didn’t get to either time.”

“I’m the last person who should be preaching,” Tony says. “I know I’m going straight down. Hell, I think I’d catch fire if I stepped foot into a church. But he believed in fate, and somewhere, a version of him has hotwired the time stone. Somehow, I think you’ll see him, Barnes. You will.”

Barnes nods. “I want people to remember him. The person I knew.”

“I have a few ideas.”

“And I want you to call me Bucky.”

“Bucky.” Tony nods.

It feels right.

 

#

 

“Everyone’s calling you a hero at school,” Peter tells him over the phone.

Tony doesn’t feel like a hero. Not on days like today, where it’s rainy and he remembers the fog on Vormir, remembers Steve falling with his eyes closed.

“I think so, too. You saved us.”

Not Steve.

“Can I spend the night at the compound?”

“What?” Tony says.

“I’m a really bad liar, so I’m not going to say anything about me or Aunt May having a trip or anything. You just sound like you need someone there. We can mess around in the lab. I want to have a silly string fight with my web shooters.”

Despite himself, Tony laughs. “I’ll send a car for you.”

 

#

 

Tony’s already awake and sitting in front of his laptop when he hears footsteps. He turns. Peter. Sometimes, he sleeps at the tower. Sometimes, Tony checks his room to make sure he hasn’t vanished in the night. Only sometimes. All he knows it that he sleeps better when he knows Peter is down the hall.

Will he admit?

Maybe.

“The Hello Kitty pajamas? Really?”

“It’d be a waste not to wear them.” Peter sits next to Tony and bounces his pink-clad leg. The kid’s nervous energy could power the city, but Tony’s glad he’s here rather than out taking on petty crime. “Have you ever seen _Finding Nemo_?”

“Christ.”

“No, I watched it all the time as a kid. It’s a good movie, Mr. Stark. I feel like Nemo. You know? After everything you told me. Bucky’s Gill. You’re Marlin, by the way. You can pick who Dory is. I just think—”

“If you had a nightmare, kid, you can just say so.”

Peter goes quiet. Tony almost regrets saying something. Almost. But he spent enough nights alone after nightmares, wishing for the courage to tell somebody. Wishing somebody would notice because it would be easier.

“You can make all the jokes you want,” Tony says. “That’s my game. When something’s a joke, it can’t hurt you. So what’d you dream about?”

“Thanos stabbing you,” Peter whispers. “I thought for a moment…”

 _Say something funny_ . A sarcastic response lodged itself in his throat. So many times, he said the wrong thing. It put him on the wrong foot with Pepper. Steve. _You should’ve stayed on the bus. Not come with me to Germany._

But Peter did. Peter’s his, now.

And he’s grown fond of this reality.

He leans over and hugs Peter. Truly hugs him like Howard never did. “You won’t get rid of me that easily.”

Peter shudders and leans his head against Tony’s shoulder.

Once he pulls away, they sit in comfortable silence, Peter scrolling on his phone, Tony tapping on his keyboard. He knows that Pepper’s asleep upstairs, that Happy’s alive, that Rhodey’s still dealing with the fallout.

“What are you writing?” Peter asks, leaning over his shoulder

“A foreword,” Tony says. “The story is long overdue.”

“Another musical about your life?”

“You think you’re funny, kid. You have a lot to learn.” Tony pats the seat next to him, though. Peter draws his knees to his chest. Neither one of them have to say anything.

“Sergeant Barnes is awake,” FRIDAY says. “He appears to be distressed.”

Tony pulls up the monitor for Bucky’s room. He had it installed at  the same time when Barnes established a room in the tower. For emergencies. Now, Bucky is sitting up in bed, hands threaded through his long hair, shoulders heaving. He still leaves half the bed empty. Tony did, too, in the brief time where he and Pepper were apart.

Steve, though, wouldn’t come back.

_I had never seen him cry before._

“Is Bucky alright?” Peter asks.

“He will be, kid.” Tony watches the monitor on the corner of his screen. Bucky tears one hand from his hair and clutches the dog tags around his neck. Steve’s dog tag. God, Steve would’ve known what to do.

 _He always loved the rain._ “FRIDAY, activate the lullaby for Bucky.”

He programmed it himself. After. He remembered how the rain pattered in the shell of Steve and Bucky’s Brooklyn apartment, used a dozen different sounds to recreate it.

A private thunderstorm, just for him.

“Will you?” Peter asks quietly. “Because I don’t mean to pry or anything, but sometimes I hear you and you can’t breathe, or you say something about Steve, and I just don’t want—”

“We’re gonna heal. You just watch, Pete. We’ll be alright.”

 

#

 

As Tony writes about Steve Rogers—the _real_ Steve Rogers, not wall of legends he built around himself—and Peter sits next to him, Bucky Barnes falls asleep to the rain.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope everyone enjoyed <3 If you want to cry about Infinity War some more my tumblr is such-geekiness


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